In this paper, we present a scatter search algorithm for the well-known nurse scheduling problem (NSP). This problem aims at the construction of roster schedules for nurses taking both hard and soft constraints into account. The objective is to minimize the total preference cost of the nurses and the total penalty cost from violations of the soft constraints. The problem is known to be NP-hard....

The labor shift scheduling problem has traditionally been formulated using the set covering approach proposed by Dantzig, G.B. [1954. Operations Research 2 (3), 339±341]. The size of the resulting integer model with this approach, however, has been found to be very large to solve optimally in most practical applications. Recently, Bechtold, S.E., Jacobs, L.W. [1990. Management Science 36 (11), ...

The SEQUENCE constraint is useful in modelling car sequencing, rostering, scheduling and related problems. We introduce half a dozen new encodings of the SEQUENCE constraint, some of which do not hinder propagation. We prove that, down a branch of a search tree, domain consistency can be enforced on the SEQUENCE constraint in just O(n log n) time. This improves upon the previous bound of O(n) f...

In industry, everybody understands that efficiency of any serious industrial activity is significantly influenced by scheduling. Due to good scheduling the customers can get their ordered goods in time and for reasonable price which is not increased due to extra fee for SKLAD. But scheduling is as important in those types of complex services, which have to be ensured e.g. through cooperation of...

This paper is concerned with an employee scheduling problem involving multiple shifts and work centers, where employees belong to a hierarchy of categories having downward substitutability. An employee at a higher category may perform the duties of an employee at a lower category, but not vice versa. However, a higher category employee receives a higher compensation than a lower category employ...

A Bayesian optimization algorithm for the nurse scheduling problem is presented, which involves choosing a suitable scheduling rule from a set for each nurse’s assignment. Unlike our previous work that used GAs to implement implicit learning, the learning in the proposed algorithm is explicit, i.e. eventually, we will be able to identify and mix building blocks directly. The Bayesian optimizati...

Nurse scheduling is a difficult optimization problem with multiple constraints. There is extensive research in the literature solving the problem using meta-heuristics approaches. In this paper, we will investigate an intelligent search heuristics that handles cost based scheduling problem. The heuristics demonstrated superior performances compared to the original algorithms used to solve the p...

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This paper addresses the Ground Crew Rostering Problem with Work Patterns, an important manpower planning problem arising in the ground operations of airline companies. We present a cutting stockbased integer programming formulation of the problem and describe a powerful heuristic decomposition approach, which utilizes column generation and variable fixing, to construct efficient rosters for a ...

s of Papers A-81 Department of Information Engineering